BBC Launches @North – a new digital initiative across North of England

@North will reach out to new and established digital producers and agencies across the whole of the north in a link up with BBC Children’s – one of the departments moving to Salford in 2011.

@North will encourage and support the development and delivery of interactive content for children, with up to four projects with a total budget of £500,000 available for commissions by CBBC and CBeebies.

The project, which represents a new model of engagement with independent companies and digital agencies across the North, will rely on close collaboration with the regional screen agencies – North West Vision and Media, Northern Film and Media and Screen Yorkshire.

This pilot project will be led by BBC Children’s and will involve multi-disciplinary teams from many other areas of the BBC such as Future, Media and Technology (FM&T) in new collaborative ways of working.

The key objectives for the project are:

For CBBC andCBeebies to tap into new opportunities for innovation and creativity.

To stimulate and inspire the digital sector across the North of England, initially focusing on creating new children’s content.

To understand and help develop the supply chain across the North for the BBC and build on existing creativity and skills.

To make the BBC North process for commissioning multiplatform content open and collaborative.

To share knowledge about the BBC’s infrastructure, processes and audiences.

It is intended that @North will provide a blueprint of how BBC North can work more openly in MediaCityUK and will involve more BBC division partners as it develops.

Commenting on @North, Peter Salmon said: “This is an exciting new concept and there is real business up for grabs, with CBBC and CBeebies commissions to be won by creative organisations working on interactive media across the North of England. There is some great creative work going on in the digital sector across the North and we want to work in partnership to develop new and exciting multiplatform content for our young audiences.”

Independent companies and digital agencies in the North are invited to send expressions of interest in the @North project to Mario Dubois, Project Lead – mario.dubois@bbc.co.uk.